Phonological sensitivity of selected NTA newscasters to sound-spelling discrepancy in English and its implications for Oral English Teaching in Nigeria

Abstract

This study examined the Phonological Sensitivity of newscasters in the Nigerian Television
Authority (NTA) to sound-spelling discrepancies in English. This is an often ignored but
essential variable in English studies, hence its need. Thirty newscasters from one zonal and
one non-zonal station provided the data. Respondents were examined based on the
framework of Orthographic Complexity which employs rhyme-matching, alliteration-oddity
detection, elision and phoneme counting tasks. Epi-info (version 6) was employed for data
entry and STATA for the computer analysis. The results indicated that only 36.67% of
respondents recognized phonological redundancies in the elision task of supposedly
common English words. The probability of the occurrence of spelling pronunciation across
phoneme, rhyme and alliteration tasks was 0.032, 0.193 and 1.000 respectively.
Respondents were sensitive to spellings with phonemic tendencies as 80% passed in
American sound-spelling compliant words and 45% when otherwise. The study concluded
that the orthographic complexity of the English language is an important precursor of
processing abilities and that the preponderancy of research in mother tongue interference
as the major reason for Nigerians' poor pronunciation is half the truth. It decried as
obsolete the pedagogic practice of gauging speakers' performances against natives' and
recommends the teaching of dialectal variations in Nigeria.

Keywords: English, phonology, sensitivity, orthography, newscasters, Nigeria

MARANG: Journal of Language and Literature Vol. 17 2007: pp. 29-42